| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Jonnyboy |
CourgettesI'm getting scared, nothing to pick yet (within the week though) but they are friggin enormous at least five times the size of the measly plants we grow last year, and there are tons of flowers already. |
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| Snowball |
All I've got is lots and lots of huge leaves, not even a flower yet. 
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| sean |
You'll be OK, you've got a shotgun and a chainsaw haven't you? | ||||
| Slim |
we're moving on to our second planting.... 
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| Mary-Jane |
Ours are producing well - much better than last year. | ||||
| mark |
producing well here
however the one planted outside under a bell cloche (an old water machine bottle ) has grown big and is producing loads of bigger fruit. My ealier indoor sowing - transplanted outide are all smaller and producing tiny fruit - slower. That may well be a mercy but I'm sure they'll catch up . Think maybe i'll drop the indoor sowing next year... I've seen the same thing in previous years too. The transplant sets them back by more than the gain of the indoor start. - though maybe worth having just a couple indoors in case any ourdoors don't come up or get eaten And when we all start drowning in the b****y things and can't thin what to do with them remember the magic words "chocolate courgette cake" |
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| Jonnyboy |
I grew mine outside from seed this year, and the've done loads better than the transplanted seedlings from last year. Strange. | ||||
| mark |
I have observed this pattern over several years now. Starting under some sort of cloche in situ does seem to be much the best way to get courgettes off to a racing start..... |
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| Snowball |
Can I do anything to mine, like cut back some of the leaves? | ||||
| marigold |
I cut the lower leaves off mine as they become mildewed/tatty/just too big. Doesn't seem to affect the rate of fruiting at all. My plant, which nearly died when I first planted it out, is going strong and producing enough courgettes for my requirements (and no more, thank goodness!) at the moment  .
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| wellington womble |
I wonder if they just don't do very well early on - they like warmth, don't they? And also, they like lots if water, and last year was very dry early on.
Mine is in (see, I'm learning!), planted late in the greenhouse, and left too long before planting out. I have very small plants with a few teeny courgettes on, and lots of flowers. Expecting courgettes in the next fortnight (At least, last weekend, they were- you know what they're like! Maube I should check) Start emptying the freezer, then........ |
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| Bebo |
Just put my first batch of courgette and blue cheese soup in the freezer. | ||||
| sean |
Courgette frittata for lunch here. | ||||
| wellington womble |
Right, I better go and check them. Especially given the monsters that I forgot about last year! | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Spinach and broccolli tart here, got a glut of that too. |
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| wellington womble |
They both sound nice. Can I pursuade you lovely chaps to supply recipes? I'm safe from the courgette glut at the moment. | ||||
| otatop |
For some reason, I've never succeeded with courgettes. I've never managed to harvest more than 1 or 2 per plant - if that. I keep trying though. This year at least I've got some flowers - and the plants look healthy enough. | ||||
| cab |
Top tip for next year, grow 'parthenon f1'. Its marvellous - decent flavour, fast growing, and seems to fruit prolifically even when other varieties choose to sulk.
Likeliest reason for not getting any courgettes is wierd temperature, so you don't get female flowers. Next most likely is lack of pollination. Parthenon is a parthenocarpic variety, so doesn't need bees. |
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| otatop |
Parthenon, Parthenon - I'll try to remember that. I usually order everything from Simpsons Seeds and Kings Seeds. Temperature isn't usually a problem in my sheltered, south-facing London garden. And, surprisingly enough, we get plenty of bees. | ||||
| sean |
Courgette frittata:
Some courgettes Some eggs Some onion or not Some parmesan or not. Gently fry the chopped onion and sliced courgettes until softened. Lightly beat your eggs and stir in the grated parmesan. Pour it over the eggs and fry gently until it's nearly cooked through. Flip it over to brown the top or shove it under a grill. |
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| Jonnyboy |
shortcrust pastry
broccolli spinach eggs milk cheese seasoning. Quantities - I used a pint of milk and 6 eggs, change based on the size of your tart dish. Part cook broccolli and drain Wilt the spinach then drain, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze the moisture out of it. Squeeze some more and then roughly chop. scald milk, add to beaten eggs whilst whisking furiously, add spinach and mix. add grated cheese to taste and season well. place broccolli florets in tart case, pour over mix until covered and level with top of case. make up more egg/milk/cheese/seasoning if required. Bake in hot oven for 30 mins. trim pastry before serving if you like. A little chopped, fried bacon goes well in the mix. EDIT: and a pic, kind of a homage to the millenium falcon, in quiche form. 
Click to see full size image 
Click to see full size image |
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| Stewy |
I've made this soup a few times and it's really nice.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/courgetteandpotatoso_71074.shtml |
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| wellington womble |
Thanks guys. I've defrosted salmon for tonight, but I reckong it would go nicely in either of those. Probably the tart (himself is rather partial to tarts!) | ||||
| katie |
Well I'm in despair here. I've planted out about 10 plants and each and everyone has been destroyed by slugs despite surrounding them with grit and even using a couple of slug pellets under plant pots against my instincts. I have one plant left and daren't put it in the ground in case it gets eaten. I'll never have a glut (or even a courgette!) at this rate
Any ideas to keep my plantlet safe? |
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| wellington womble |
Get some copper tape from the garden centre, cut sections (about 4 inches) from an old plastic bottle and put tape around one end, an inch(ish) from the edge. Put this over your plant (copper end up) making sure it's firmly embedded in the soil. by the time your plant is touching the ground over the top, it will be big and strong enough to cope with the odd slug nibble. The plastic rings are re-usable, and you can put them round lots of things - All my squashes, lettuces and beans go in with them.
Failing that, either wild-life friendly slug pellets, nematodes or a song thrush will keep the numbers down. My song thrush was doing brilliantly, but I think she has another brood to incubate, so she isn't around so much. I daren't use pellets, though, because she's such a help in the slug war (having all day to hunt the little blighters down!) |
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| mark |
The plastic bottle rings usually work even without the copper tape by setting up a mechanical barrier as slugs are reluctant to do a 180 degree turn over a sharp edge and sually turn away.. But do make sure you remove mechanically all the slugs you can and clean up dens and hiding places where they lurk I think often with stuff like cougettes sometimes it is snails that are the real culprits - so don't forget to remove them too. Mice and pigeons can also attack young plants so not all "slug damage wil be what you think it is,, so keep an open mind. |
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| Frewen |
That sounds good 
Plenty of courgettes here 
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| katie |
Thanks for the advice WW and Mark. I will give it all a try. I'm determined to have at least one courgette this year. The funny thing is. I've never had a problem in the past! | ||||
| Bebo |
Sweat a roughly chopped onion in a bit of olive oil and butter until soft. Add 900g of sliced courgettes and cook until soft (should take about 10 minutes). Add half a teaspoon of dried oregano (or fresh if you've got it), salt, pepper and a pint of vegetable stock. Simmer for 30minutes. Add 125g of blue cheese of your choice, broken up into chunks - I like rochefort personally. Once it's melted in whizz up in a food processor / liquidiser or with one of those stick blenders. Stir in a slug of single cream or milk. That's it. |
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| wellington womble |
I make a very similar version with goats cheese and basil instead of blue cheese and oregano. Might make a nice change, though. | ||||
| James |
I've just noticed exactly the same thing this year by accident: I have a butternut squash which I started in the greenhouse & then transplanted to its final position, still in its paper pot to minimize root damage. Another volunteer winter squash/pumpkin (unknown type...) germinated in a flower bed from some compost I applied. The squash that started its life in the greenhouse has done nothing but sulk ever since, and is only just now starting to grow properly. But the volunteer in the flower bed is loving it! lots of male flowers so far, but yesterday I noticed the start of the first winter squash, with plenty more female flowers due to open in a few days. The greenhouse squash is so small in comparison, I think I'll be lucky to get 3 butternuts of it. Next year, I think I'll start them outdoors insitu with a bottle-top cloche. Our courgettes have also had a tough start- two started outdoors in pots by a friend, one started in the G/H by me, they've all taken a long time to get going. A very slow start, but we're only a few days away from our first courgettes. The problem has been the weather swings we've been having: incredibly hot for a day or two, then torrential rain for a day or two, then very high winds with no sun at all for days on end. The poor plants just cant settle in to a normal growth pattern. Most things are growing slower this year Interestingly, the courgettes started outdoors were in plastic pots (ie remove before planting), while mine were paper in the greenhouse. In terms of development today, there's very little difference between the greenhouse early started paper pot planted courgettes and the later started outdoor, plastic pot removed courgettes. The only squash thats done very well is the one germinated in situ. |
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| wellington womble |
Excellent - that's cut down next years transplanting then. I wish I could get it to work for sweetcorn - I'm sure that would benefit even more from not being transplanted. | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Fleece? |
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| vanessa |
Sweetcorn benefits from being transplanted, as it likes to be planted quite deeply ... especially in exposed locations. However, if you use some form of root-trainer (either long plastic pots specially made for the purpose, or loo-roll middles etc), then you don't get too much root disturbance during transplanting, so less shock to the plantlet.
This year, I "chitted" my sweetcorn seed, sowed in root trainers, and have only just planted-out this week. Very late - because my first lot failed. |
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| tahir |
Courgettes make great pakoras | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Found my seed packet, zucchini F1 - 'Prolific cropper' 
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| mark |
Inth epast i have done two batches of swetcorn - one starts indoors in the warmtho f the house the goes into greenhouse in early may and get planted out June. The other is plated out direct in late may. The first batch is earlier but has smaller cobs - the second is later but is all round bigger mark |
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| vanessa |
How interesting, Mark. Will be interesting to see how my corn fares this year. | ||||
| cab |
Sweetcorn throws a long taproot straight down. Benefits most from that not being disturbed; some swear by root trainers, I find that they do well if planted in bog rolls. And while courgettes will germinate and do well sowed direct, I do better with them sowed in pots and then planted out each in a good bucket load of well rotted manure, with more muck mulch. I find thats also less work than direct sowing (which requires more looking after in the ground, I find them harder to keep an eye on). |
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| dulcilama |
After last year's damped off yucky tiny or no courgettes, ours were planted out in a row under a wire hoop and fleece cloche. We have courgettes long and courgettes round in a useable number. Have only just removed the fleece as these cold/damp cycles are awful for courgettes. Someone - I know who you are - left the fleece off for 48 hours week before last and the end rot yuck started again. Now sorted and harvesting again.
Can't believe we have to tuck 'em up, but it works. |
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| mark |
really getting into courgette fritters now!!! | ||||
| Quail By Mail |
Courgette Fritters
1 onion, finely chopped 3 Tbsp Sunflower oil 3 Courgettes, finely chopped 3 Eggs 3 Tbsp Plain Flour Salt & Pepper 3 sprigs of Mint, finely chopped 3 tsp Dill 200g Feta Cheese, crumbled 1 Fry onion in the sunflower oil until nut brown. 2 Add the courgettes & sauté. 3 Beat eggs with flour until well blended. 4 Add salt, pepper, mint & dill to the egg mixture. 5 Add the cooked onions & courgettes. 6 Fill bottom of frying pan with some sunflower oil. 7 Using a spoon make fritters and drop into the hot oil, turning once. 8 Drop onto some kitchen paper. |
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| mark |
oh mine are just baby courgettes sliced lengthwise dipped in flour and my bartter of choice and then fried .
served with a nice dip .. sometimes simple is most delicious.. |
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| Kinnopio |
Courgette risotto is good,particularly with sliced up courgette flowers on the top.
Courgettes are doing really well this year much better than last. Plenty to give to friends at work. |
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| vanessa |
I must get a photo of my "self-seeded" courgette later. Obviously one from the year before last that's only just germinated this year, as it's a cross between a long and a round courgette. Looks rather rude 
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| Just Jane |
I found that it grows best diretly sown: I sowed it thickly (like they do in the fields) so that slugs can't eat that many, rows a knees width apart (to aid weeding at the early stage) in the first week of May. The centre of the bed is now about 1m80 tall & flowering (ones round edge are smaller) - the solid mass of them seems to keep them upright |
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| Simon |
Courgettes, mmmmmmm
Slice 'em thinly and throw them in a pan with plenty of olive oil and fresh chopped garlic. Don't forget the tomatos. 
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